The brown bag seminar is a weekly meeting organized by and for graduate students. The goal of the brown bag seminar is to encourage students to practice presenting their research among fellow students in a casual setting.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026 1:00 pm
Applied Math Graduate Student Brown Bag Seminar - two speakers this week
Speaker 1: Sarah Luca
Title: Examples and Challenges of Spiking Algorithm Development for Neuromorphic Computing
Abstract: With the explosive rise in resource demands from advancements in AI/machine learning and large-scale scientific and edge computing applications, there is a growing need for more sustainable approaches to computing than conventional methods. Neuromorphic computing is an emerging field inspired by the brain which can perform highly parallel and energy efficient computations, making it an appealing alternative to conventional computing, but due to its emerging nature and differences in hardware design, neuromorphic algorithms are challenging to develop. In this talk, I will present examples of algorithms I developed for neuromorphic implementation on both digital and analog hardware that demonstrate the most common approaches to neuromorphic algorithm design. Throughout the talk, I will also highlight the many challenges I have observed while developing and implementing the algorithms in hardware and conclude with some future directions inspired by these results and observations.
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Speaker 2: Scott Hottovy
Title: Simple Stochastic Models of the Tropical Atmosphere and MJO
Abstract: As tropical storms go, you have probably heard of Hurricanes, Tropical Cyclones, El Niño, and La Niña. But you may have not heard of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). It is the major contributor to rainfall in tropical regions and influences the climate in the United States regularly. Unlike Hurricanes and El Niño, the MJO's mechanisms are still not well understood. In an effort to understand the mechanisms of the MJO, I will describe a model building from a dynamically stationary "background" tropical rainfall model and coupling that to a tropical wave model. These models use Stochastic Differential Equations (SDE) and Stochastic Partial Differential Equations (SPDE) as the building blocks. In the "background" model, an SDE model is used which leads to characteristics of criticality and phase transitions. For the full model with waves, we use a continuous one-dimensional SPDE. Because of the simplicity of the models, we are able to solve many statistics exactly, or run fast numerical experiments.